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Monday, May 9, 2016

Spring Has Sprung...A New Dude and New Chicks!

Spring is a fickle season in Central Oregon. Sometimes it's sunny and blossoms are blooming, and other days it's flurries and frigid winds. Either way, we're taking advantage of it - on snow days Mike hits the mountain, and on warm days we get busy exploring or working on our yard.

One new addition to our house is our friend, Josh, who has temporarily taken over our guest room. He is now an enthusiastic Bend resident, and the first, but hopefully not the last, of our friends to move up here!

Josh and Mike discussing fat bikes while we run errands.

It's nice to have an extra set of hands around the house. We have a million and one projects left to do, and about half of those involve the yard. We got zealous and ripped up all our grass, and installed boulders. It was so expensive to water the grass that I paid a couple thousand to have rocks dumped on the yard. Makes sense, right?

One day, our yard will be covered in drought tolerant flowers.It just might take about 3 years for them to all grow in.

One other bonus of having Josh here is that it makes us appreciate our neighborhood more, and reminds you of things you've gotten used to seeing. Although, I'm still in awe when we go hiking in places like Smith Rock.

The view as you walk into the canyon.

Walking along the river trail.

Loved this "balancing rock!"

The sun setting; you can see the "balancing rock" on the right.

There's people to the left behind Mike up on "Misery Trail" for scale.

One new "spring" experience we're going through is that our favorite hen went broody. Basically, she wanted to hatch out some babies and she refused to get off the nest. Even when we pulled all the eggs out, she'd just sit on an empty nest and get all irritated if we opened the nest box door. The problem with a broody hen is: we don't have a rooster. So our eggs aren't going to be hatching anything.

After a month of her refusing to get off her nest and eating minimal amounts of food every day, we started to get worried. She was losing lots of weight and looking awful. We finally gave in and bought two baby chicks at the feed store. She immediately perked up when she heard the peeping and took them in as her own! She is the best momma hen.

One of the babies - "Two Spot (Tupac)" at one day old.

It's hard to tell but this is the other chick, "Notorious B.I.R.D."

It's been a fun experience with the chicks so far, and we don't have to do a thing except feed them, give them clean water, and make sure predators don't eat them at night (hence the reason they are in a cardboard lined cage). Otherwise, the momma hen does everything. We are crossing our fingers that at least one of them is not a boy...

Chick update in the next post...We should know by then if they're roosters or hens!